On Tuesday night, Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared in front of a bunch of US lawmakers to answer some ‘tough’ questions on the search engine giant’s handling of user data and expansion plans in China.
Of the many questions asked to Sundar Pichai, one was on, why US President Donald Trump’s photo appears whenever someone Googles the word ‘idiot’.
Zoe Lofgren- a sitting US Congresswoman asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai why pictures of Donald Trump pop up every time someone Googles for the word ‘idiot’. To answer this question, Pichai went into a technical explanation of how Google search indexes webpages, including pictures, and ranks them against popular keywords based on algorithms, with absolutely no human intervention.
Apparently, Lofgren asked was not convinced further asked, “So it’s not some little man sitting behind the curtain figuring out what we’re going to show the users?”
While stifling a smile, Pichai explained that Google doesn’t function manually and it is not little men sitting behind curtains manipulating Google search results.
The Q&A session got further more hilarious when the US Congress displayed their ignorance in the supposedly ‘grilled down’ Google CEO Sundar Pichai, keep reading below.
Another US Congressman Steve King wanted to know how a mean picture of him ended up appearing on his seven-year-old granddaughter’s iPhone. He went on to ask Sundar Pichai, “How does that show up an iPhone.”
The Google CEO responded saying, “Sir, the iPhone is made by a different company.” Steve King then said it might have been an Android or a hand-me-down of some kind.
Steve Cohen- another US Congressman wanted to know how despite giving four recent interviews to MSNBC, why those interviews weren’t ranking right at top when he was searching for his name. Before answering this, he did smile a little and said that news is ranked and highlighted in a neutral way.
Meanwhile Google denied starting a China-only search engine, vowed to abide by all US legal requirements in any such project in the future, but that was about it. Other than Trump photos and Congress’ lackadaisical attitude, Sundar Pichai faced very little heat during his time in front of the US lawmakers.
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